Amicus Curiae Brief — Learning Resources, Inc., et al., Petitioners v. Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, et al.

Nos. 24-1287, 25-250

In the

Supreme Court of the United States

LEARNING RESOURCES, INC., et al.,

Petitioners,

v.

DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE

UNITED STATES, et al.,

Respondents.

DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE

UNITED STATES, et al.,

Petitioners,

v.

V.O.S. SELECTIONS, INC., et al.,

Respondents.

On Writ of Certiorari Before Judgment to the

United States Court of A ppeals for the

District of Columbia Circuit

On Writ of Certiorari to the United States

Court of A ppeals for the Federal Circuit

CRUTCHFIELD AMICUS CURIAE BRIEF

SUPPORTING PETITIONERS IN NO. 24-1287

AND RESPONDENTS IN NO. 25-250

Peter J. Brann

Counsel of Record

David Swetnam-Burland

Brann & Isaacson

113 Lisbon Street, P.O. Box 3070

Lewiston, ME 04243

(207) 786-3566

pbrann@brannlaw.com

Attorneys for Amicus Curiae

Crutchfield Corporation

385541

A

(800) 274-3321 • (800) 359-6859

i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

TABLE OF CONTENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

TABLE OF CITED AUTHORITIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

AMICUS CURIAE INTEREST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

ARGUMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

I.

Both High Tariffs and the Threat of

Rapidly Changing Tariffs A re

Devastating to Retailers that Must

Import their Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

II. The Plain Language of the IEEPA and

U.S. Constitution Do Not Grant the

President Unprecedented, Unilateral,

and Unreviewable Authority to Set or

Change Tariffs, Which Would Violate

the Major Questions Doctrine and the

Nondelegation Doctrine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

ii

TABLE OF CITED AUTHORITIES

Page

CASES

Ala. Assn. of Realtors v. DHHS,

594 U.S. 758 (2021) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 10, 11, 14

American Power & Light Co. v. SEC,

329 U.S. 90 (1946) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Biden v. Nebraska,

600 U.S. 477 (2023) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10, 11

Bostock v. Comstock Cty., Georgia,

590 U.S. 644 (2020) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham Corp.,

567 U.S. 142 (2012) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Dept. of Transportation v.

Assoc. of Am. Railroads,

575 U.S. 43 (2015) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15, 17

FCC v. Consumers Research,

145 S. Ct. 2482 (2025) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15, 16, 17

FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp.,

529 U.S. 120 (2000) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11, 14

Feliciano v. Dep’t of Transportation,

145 S. Ct. 1284 (2025) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Gundy v. United States,

588 U.S. 128 (2019) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14, 15, 16

iii

Cited Authorities

Page

J.W. Hampton, Jr., & Co. v. United States,

276 U.S. 394 (1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Mistretta v. United States,

488 U.S. 361 (1989) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Stanley v. City of Sanford, Florida,

145 S. Ct. 2058 (2025) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

United States v. Yoshida Int’l, Inc.,

526 F.2d 560 (C.C.P.A. 1975) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Utility Air Reg. Grp. v. EPA,

573 U.S. 302 (2014) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7, 11, 14

Wayman v. Southard,

23 U.S. (10 Wheat.) 1 (1825) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

West Virginia v. EPA,

597 U.S. 697 (2022) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 11, 14

Whitman v. Am. Trucking Assoc.,

531 U.S. 457 (2001) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 15, 16

Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer,

343 U.S. 579 (1952) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

STATUTES

50 U.S.C. §§ 1701–1710 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

50 U.S.C. § 1701(a) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 7, 18

iv

Cited Authorities

Page

50 U.S.C. § 1702 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7, 8, 17

50 U.S.C. § 1702(a)(1)(B) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 17

50 U.S.C. § 1702(b) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

50 U.S.C. §§ 4301–4341 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Cal. Civ. Code § 1770(a)(29) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS

U.S. Const. Art. I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

U.S. Const. Art. I, § 8, cl. 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

U.S. Const. Art. II, § 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

OTHER AUTHORITIES

Neil Bradley, Latest Tariffs Amount to $200

Billion Tax on Small Businesses, U.S. Chamber

of Commerce (Aug. 1, 2025) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Laura Doan, Trump Says His Tariffs Could Bring

in Trillions in Revenue. Economists Disagree,

CBS News (Apr. 4, 2025) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Stephen Dudash, Tariffs May Make Cheap

Consumer Electronics a Think of the Past,

Forbes (Apr. 30, 2025) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

v

Cited Authorities

Page

Nicholas Molinari, Spirit of the Holiday: American

Business at the Heart of the Holidays, U.S.

Chamber of Commerce (Dec. 29, 2024) . . . . . . . . . . . 5

National Retail Federation, Winter Holiday FAQs

(Dec. 2024) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Brian Reinbold and Yi Weng, Historical U.S.

Trade Deficits, Fed. Reserve Bank of St. Louis

(May 17, 2019) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Statista, Higher Tariffs Here to Stay Despite

Trade War De-Escalation, (May 2025) . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Ana Swanson, In Retaliatory Move, Trump

Threatens 100% Tariffs on Chinese Goods,

N.Y. Times (Oct. 11, 2025) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

White House X Account, Labor Day Golden Age

(Aug. 31, 2025) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Erica York and Alex Durante, Trump’s Tariffs:

Tracking the Economic Impact of Trump’s

Trade War, Tax Federation (Oct 3, 2025) . . . . . . . . 13

1

AMICUS CURIAE INTEREST*

Amicus Curiae Crutchfield Corporation is a familyowned and operated business that has been selling

electronics to American consumers for over 50 years

from Charlottesville, Virginia. Starting in the family’s

basement, Crutchfield originally sold its products through

its catalogs and by telephone, and now also sells its wide

range of consumer electronics products through the

internet in all 50 states.

Crutchfield obtains its products from different

suppliers and vendors, almost all of which are overseas.

For many products, the only available suppliers and

vendors, at least in 2025, are overseas. Thus, tariffs

imposed today, and the threat of additional tariffs imposed

tomorrow, matter.

Crutchfield has a direct interest not only in the ultimate

merits of the issues on appeal—does the President have

the unprecedented, unilateral, and unreviewable authority

to set tariffs, and if so, is such authority constitutional—

but also in the threat stemming from such claimed power.

If tariffs can be imposed, increased, decreased, suspended

or altered, not through the deliberate legislative process

in which both chambers of Congress must agree and the

President must sign the legislation, but instead through

the changing whim of a single person, then Crutchfield

cannot plan for the short term, let alone the long run,

* Under Sup. Ct. R. 37.6, Crutchfield states that no counsel

for any party authored this brief in whole or in part, and no entity

or person, aside from amicus, its members, and its counsel, made

any monetary contribution toward the preparation or submission

of this brief.

2

because it cannot possibly predict what the household

electronics it sells will cost. That is, Crutchfield asks the

Court to quell the chaos, not add to it.

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

Crutchfield submits this brief in support of the private

party plaintiffs and State plaintiffs that challenged the

tariffs imposed this year by the President under the

International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977

(IEEPA), 50 U.S.C. §§ 1701–1710. First, before considering

the merits, it is important to recognize that high and highly

volatile tariffs, and not trade deficits, are the “unusual and

extraordinary threat” to American retailers that must

import the products they sell. Crutchfield wants to avoid

the economic harm not only of the tariffs, but also of the

chaos and uncertainty resulting from wild gyrations in the

tariffs that make rational business planning impossible.

Crutchfield seeks a reset to the status quo that existed

from the IEEPA’s enactment in 1977 until early 2025

to prevent unpredictable and unexpected changes to

the tariff rates unmoored from any express authority

conferred by Congress.

Second, the unprecedented assertion that the IEEPA

grants the President unilateral and unreviewable

authority to impose, increase, decrease, suspend, or

alter tariffs on imports from virtually every country in

the world cannot be derived from the plain language of

the IEEPA or the U.S. Constitution. Even if this reading

survived a straightforward textual analysis, which it does

not, that interpretation would violate the major questions

doctrine and the nondelegation doctrine. If these doctrines

apply across-the-board, then they certainly apply to this

previously unknown presidential tariff power.

3

ARGUMENT

I.

Both High Tariffs and the Threat of Rapidly

Changing Tariffs Are Devastating to Retailers that

Must Import their Products.

Before considering the legality of the recently imposed

tariffs, it is important to recognize that both high tariffs

and the frequent changes in the tariffs have real-world,

devastating consequences on retailers like Crutchfield

that have no alternative today to importing the electronics

and other products they sell. Obviously, announced tariffs

of 145% for imports from China (which supplies nearly

60% of Crutchfield’s products), and announced tariffs of

50% for imports from the European Union (EU), 25%

for imports from Mexico and Canada, as well as many

other countries that supply products to Crutchfield, are

potentially crippling. See Stephen Dudash, Tariffs May

Make Cheap Consumer Electronics A Thing Of The Past,

Forbes (Apr. 30, 2025), available at https://www.forbes.

com/sites/greatspeculations/2025/04/30/tariffs-maymake-cheap-consumer-electronics-a-thing-of-the-past/.

Pauses to announced tariffs of uncertain length and

the threat of additional tariffs of unknown size likewise

paralyzes Crutchfield’s ability to make intelligent business

decisions. Although many of the highest announced tariffs

are currently paused, they hang like the proverbial

sword of Damocles over every retailer that imports any

product, or component part, from anywhere in the world.

Furthermore, Crutchfield cannot engage in sensible

business planning if tariffs can be increased, decreased,

suspended, or altered on a moment’s notice without any

recourse (in the Government’s view) to challenge them.

In other words, the “unusual and extraordinary threat”

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contemplated by the IEEPA, 50 U.S.C. § 1701(a), is not

the trade deficit, and not just high tariffs, but also the

threat posed by an unbridled President able to impose

at any moment any tariffs of any amount on any imports

from any country. This chart on the changing tariffs on

Chinese imports illustrates the whirlwind Crutchfield and

other retailers face:

5

Statista, Higher Tariffs Here to Stay Despite Trade War

De-Escalation (May 2025), available at https://www.

statista.com/chart/34447/additional-tariffs-by-the-uson-china-and-vice-versa-2025/; see also Ana Swanson,

In Retaliatory Move, Trump Threatens 100% Tariffs

on Chinese Goods, N.Y. Times (Oct. 11, 2025) (additional

100% tariffs on Chinese goods threatened effective Nov. 1,

2025), available at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/

us/politics/trump-xi-china-tariffs-rare-earth.html.

This turmoil is particularly devastating to American

retailers. The holiday season can be make-or-break.

Studies suggest consumers spent approximately $1

trillion on holiday sales in 2024. See Nicholas Molinari,

Spirit of the Holiday: American Business at the Heart

of the Holidays, U.S. Chamber of Commerce (Dec. 29,

2024), available at https://www.uschamber.com/economy/

spirit-of-the-season-american-businesses-at-the-heartof-the-holidays. Additionally, holiday sales account for a

disproportionate amount of retailers’ sales and profits. See

National Retail Federation, Winter Holiday FAQs (Dec.

2024) (“Overall, holiday sales in November and December

have averaged about 19% of total retail sales over the

last five years, but the figure can be higher for some

retailers. In addition, holiday sales can be more profitable

because the increased volume of purchases comes without

significantly increasing retailers’ fixed costs of doing

business.”), available at https://nrf.com/research-insights/

holiday-data-and-trends/winter-holidays/winter-holidayfaqs.

Just as Irving Berlin wrote White Christmas in the

summer, to prepare for the holiday season, retailers like

Crutchfield must make critical business decisions many

6

months in advance. For example, to send its catalogs in

time for the holidays, it must determine what products to

sell and finalize for the printers the catalog copy with fixed

prices long before the snow flies. Customers expect, and

regulators require, that prices advertised in the catalog

are accurate. See, e.g., Cal. Civ. Code § 1770(a)(29).

For its online products, Crutchfield must make

go-no go business decisions long before it hopes to sell

those products. Due to the extensive lead time to source,

manufacture, and ship products from overseas, decisions

on how many products to order must be made months in

advance. Conversely, faced with possible crippling tariffs,

decisions to cancel or scale back purchase orders from

overseas vendors for future orders must be made long

before retailers know if their worst fears are realized.

Stated differently, although the President claims authority

to change tariffs instantaneously, retailers cannot react

immediately, and that inability could be catastrophic for

retailers like Crutchfield that have crossed the Rubicon

on sourcing, ordering, and pricing.

II. The Plain Language of the IEEPA and U.S.

Constitution Do Not Gra nt the President

Unprecedented, Unilateral, and Unreviewable

Authority to Set or Change Tariffs, Which Would

Violate the Major Questions Doctrine and the

Nondelegation Doctrine.

Plain Language. We do not presume to improve

upon the lengthy, careful, analysis of the court below that

demonstrates beyond peradventure the IEEPA did not

grant the President authority to set tariffs. See 25-250

Pet. App. 25a–39a. Rather, we argue that it is a simple

straight line from the plain language of the IEEPA and

7

the U.S. Constitution to the conclusion that the IEEPA

did not and, more importantly, could not, delegate such

authority to the President.

The Government does not and cannot dispute that no

other President has claimed since the IEEPA was enacted

in 1977 that it conferred authority on the President to set

tariffs, i.e., it claims to have unearthed the President’s

unexercised tariff authority in a statute dating from

the Carter Administration. “When an agency claims to

discover in a long-extant statute an unheralded power to

regulate a significant portion of the American economy,

we typically greet its announcement with a measure of

skepticism.” Utility Air Reg. Grp. v. EPA, 573 U.S. 302,

324 (2014) (plurality opinion) (citation omitted).

To unlock this authority under 50 U.S.C. § 1701(a), the

Government claims that the “unusual and extraordinary

threat” is worldwide trade deficits, although it provides

scant support to support the counterintuitive conclusion

that these historical trade deficits are either unusual or

extraordinary. See Gov’t Brief 6–10. The Government

contends that under this newly discovered power in 50

U.S.C. § 1702, the IEEPA “clearly” authorizes these

tariffs, see Gov’t Brief 23, 25, but it does not point to any

plain language that supports that proposition.

In describing the President’s authority, the IEEPA

does not mention “tariffs” or any of its usual synonyms,

such as tax, levy, imposition, impost, excise, or duty. See

50 U.S.C. § 1702. Instead, the Government plucks the

words “regulate” and “importation” from a laundry list

of administrative powers to argue that this language

“clearly” gives the President the right to impose tariffs:

8

[I]nvestigate, block during the pendency of

an investigation, regulate, direct and compel,

nullify, void, prevent or prohibit, any acquisition,

holding, withholding, use, transfer, withdrawal,

transportation, importation or exportation of,

or dealing in, or exercising any right, power,

or privilege with respect to, or transactions

involving, any property in which any foreign

country or a national thereof has any interest

by any person, or with respect to any property,

subject to the jurisdiction of the United States[.]

50 U.S.C. § 1702(a)(1)(B) (emphasis added to show

language relied upon by the Government); see Gov’t Brief

3, 15, 23–24, 30. Because language in a statute is known

by the company it keeps, see Christopher v. SmithKline

Beecham Corp., 567 U.S. 142, 163 n.19 (2012), the fact

that none of the rest of this statute suggests any taxing

power reinforces the conclusion that this statute did

not delegate tariff authority to the President. Cf. Ala.

Assn. of Realtors v. DHHS, 594 U.S. 758, 764–65 (2021)

(per curiam) (statute that doesn’t mention evictions is a

“wafer-thin reed” to convey “unprecedented,” “expansive

authority” to the CDC to halt evictions for millions of

people); West Virginia v. EPA, 597 U.S. 697, 723 (2022)

(“Extraordinary grants of regulatory authority are rarely

accomplished through ‘modest words,’ ‘vague terms,’ or

‘subtle devices.’”) (cleaned up) (quoting Whitman v. Am.

Trucking Assoc., 531 U.S. 457, 468 (2001)); Whitman,

531 U.S. at 468 (Congress does not “hide elephants in

mouseholes”) (citation omitted).

The Government does not claim, nor could it, that the

express language of Section 1702 granted the President the

previously overlooked power to impose trillions of dollars in

9

tariffs. Rather, the Government takes a long and winding

road in which a predecessor court interpreting a different

statute 50 years ago under different circumstances and

under different Supreme Court precedent concluded

that President Nixon had authority to impose temporary

tariffs under the Trading With the Enemy Act (TWEA),

50 U.S.C. §§ 4301–4341. See United States v. Yoshida Int’l,

Inc., 526 F.2d 560 (C.C.P.A. 1975). As this Court recently

reminded, when interpreting statutes, “we do not usually

pick a conceivable-but-convoluted interpretation over the

ordinary one.” Stanley v. City of Sanford, Florida, 145 S.

Ct. 2058, 2065 (2025) (citations omitted); see also Feliciano

v. Dep’t of Transportation, 145 S. Ct. 1284, 1291 (2025)

(“those whose lives are governed by law are entitled to rely

on its ordinary meaning, not left to speculate about hidden

messages”) (citations omitted). Even if a predecessor

lower court faithfully applied this Court’s statutory and

constitutional interpretation tools in 1975 to interpret the

TWEA, those results cannot be teleported by this Court

in 2025 to interpret the IEEPA.

Because “[l]egislative history, for those who take

it into account, is meant to clear up ambiguity, not

create it[,]” Bostock v. Comstock Cty., Georgia, 590 U.S.

644, 674 (2020) (quotation omitted), the Government’s

interpretation of the IEEPA using a different statute

is unavailing. Even the Government concedes that the

TWEA was “modified” by the IEEPA, see Gov’t Brief

14, and the court below more accurately described that

modification—the IEEPA was enacted in part to cabin the

authority asserted by President Nixon to set tariffs. See

25-250 Pet. App. 39a–42a. The suggestion that the IEEPA

secretly expanded the President’s peacetime tariff power

cannot be squared with either the plain language or the

legislative history of the IEEPA.

10

Similarly, the Government’s argument that tariffs

and the threat of tariffs allegedly give the President

great “leverage” is unavailing. See Gov’t Brief 41. “[O]ur

system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even

in pursuit of desirable ends.” Ala. Assn. of Realtors,

594 U.S. at 766 (citing Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v.

Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 582, 585–86 (1952), and describing

Youngstown as “concluding that even the Government’s

belief that its action ‘was necessary to avert a national

catastrophe’ could not overcome a lack of congressional

authorization”). Following Youngstown, if Congress

shares the President’s view that high, volatile, tariffs are

necessary to avert a national catastrophe, Congress can

authorize such tariffs. If Congress does not authorize such

tariffs, the President cannot impose them just because

he believes they are necessary or appropriate. The plain

language of the IEEPA does not grant the President the

expansive authority claimed by the Government.

Major Questions Doctrine. The Government’s

claim that the IEEPA granted the President unlimited

and unreviewable authority to impose any tariff on

imports from any country at any time runs into the brick

wall of the major questions doctrine. The Court could

have been describing this case in its recent decisions:

“Even if the text were ambiguous, the sheer scope of the

[President’s] claimed authority under [the IEEPA] would

counsel against the Government’s interpretation.” Ala.

Assn. of Realtors, 594 U.S. at 724 (brackets added). In

asserting boundless tariff power over all imports from any

country in the world, “[t]here is no serious dispute that the

[President] claims the authority to exercise control over

‘a significant portion of the American economy.’” Biden

v. Nebraska, 600 U.S. 477, 503 (2023) (brackets added)

11

(quoting Utility Air, 573 U.S. at 324; FDA v. Brown &

Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U.S. 120, 159 (2000)).

In this Court’s recent cases applying the major

questions doctrine, the amounts at stake, albeit significant,

were smaller than the stakes in this case. See Utility Air,

573 U.S. at 322 (EPA greenhouse gas rules would increase

administrative costs in one program to $1.5 billion and

in another program to $21 billion, lead to “decade-long

delays in issuing permits,” and cause permitting costs

of $147 billion); Ala. Assn. of Realtors, 594 U.S. at 764

(“Congress has provided nearly $50 billion in emergency

rental assistance—a reasonable proxy of the [eviction]

moratorium’s economic impact.”) (brackets added); West

Virginia, 597 U.S. at 714 (“EPA’s own modeling concluded

that the [Clean Power Plan] rule would entail billions of

dollars in compliance costs,” require closure of “dozens

of coal-fired plants, and eliminate tens of thousands of

jobs across various sectors,” while opponents claimed

significantly higher costs) (brackets added); Nebraska, 600

U.S. at 483 (“The Secretary [of Education]’s plan canceled

roughly $430 billion of federal student loan balances[.]”)

(brackets added). These amounts pale in comparison to

the trillions of dollars claimed to be at stake in this case.

When originally imposed, the President claimed that

these worldwide tariffs will “raise over $1 trillion in the

next year or so, helping to reduce the national debt and

even potentially offset some income taxes.” Laura Doan,

Trump Says His Tariffs Could Bring in Trillions in

Revenue. Economists Disagree, CBS News (Apr. 4, 2025)

(“‘You’re going to see billions of dollars, even trillions of

dollars coming into our country very soon in the form

of tariffs,’ the President said last week.”), available at

12

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/factcheck-trump-tariffsrevenue/.

Now, the Government repeatedly argues that this case

concerns trillions of dollars. See, e.g., Gov’t Brief 3, 11.

The White House’s recent public statements are even more

fulsome, claiming that the tariffs already have resulted in

“$8 trillion in tariff revenue” from new investment and

have created “hundreds of thousands of new jobs.”

13

White House X Account, Labor Day Golden Age (Aug. 31,

2025), available at https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1

962170169020613082?lang=en. The President’s public

pronouncements should inform the Court whether the

major questions doctrine is implicated.

On the other side of the ledger, opponents of these

recently imposed tariffs claim that they amount to a

$200 billion annual tax on small businesses. See Neil

Bradley, Latest Tariffs Amount to $200 Billion Tax on

Small Businesses, U.S. Chamber of Commerce (Aug. 1,

2025), available at https://www.uschamber.com/tariffs/

latest-tariffs-spell-200-billion-annual-tax-for-smallbusinesses. Other opponents contend that the IEEPA

tariffs will cost American consumers $1.7 trillion over

the next decade; will result in 0.7% decline in long-term

GNP; and will lead to 672,000 lost jobs. See Erica York and

Alex Durante, Trump’s Tariffs: Tracking the Economic

Impact of Trump’s Trade War, Tax Foundation (Oct. 3,

2025), available at https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/

federal/trump-tariffs-trade-war/.

For present purposes, the issue is not whether the

tariff proponents or opponents are correct—the key

point that both sides agree that these tariffs will have a

trillion-dollar impact on the American economy, which

is substantially more than necessary to trigger analysis

under the major questions doctrine articulated by this

Court. Applying the standards enunciated in those cases,

the Court should be skeptical that this trillion-dollar

power to affect the American economy lay hidden in a

1977 statute for nearly 50 years.

With great power comes great responsibility. “We

expect Congress to speak clearly when authorizing an

14

agency to exercise powers of vast economic and political

significance.” Ala. Assn. of Realtors, 594 U.S. at 724

(cleaned up) (quoting Utility Air, 573 U.S. at 324; Brown

& Williamson, 529 U.S. at 160). In these circumstances,

“both separation of powers principles and a practical

understanding of legislative intent make us ‘reluctant

to read into ambiguous statutory text’ the delegation

claimed to be lurking there.” West Virginia, 597 U.S. at

723 (quoting Utility Air, 573 U.S. at 324). The President

“instead must point to ‘clear congressional authorization’

for the power [he] claims.” West Virginia, 597 U.S. at 723

(brackets added) (quoting Utility Air, 573 U.S. at 324).

Suffice it to say, connecting the words “regulate” and

“importation” with an ellipsis that erases 16 intervening

words of the statute does not add up to “clear congressional

authorization” for the President to impose a “tariff.” The

major questions doctrine prohibits the President from

asserting unilateral and unreviewable authority to impose,

increase, decrease, suspend, or alter tariffs on imports

from virtually every country in the world.

Nondelegation Doctrine. Even if the ambiguous

language of the IEEPA can be elastically expanded to

authorize the imposition of tariffs, the Government’s

argument runs aground on another shoal, namely, the

nondelegation doctrine. “The nondelegation doctrine

bars Congress from transferring its legislative power

to another branch of Government.” Gundy v. United

States, 588 U.S. 128, 132 (2019) (plurality opinion). “The

nondelegation doctrine is rooted in the principle of

separation of powers that underlies our tripartite system

of Government.” Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361,

371 (1989).

15

As every civics student knows, “[a]ll legislative

Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of

the United States,” U.S. Const. Art. I (emphasis added),

while “[t]he executive Power shall be vested in a President

of the United States of America,” U.S. Const. Art. II, § 1

(emphasis added). Additionally, the Constitution expressly

grants to Congress, not the President, the power to raise

money and impose taxes and tariffs: “The Congress shall

have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and

Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common

Defense and general Welfare of the United States[.]” U.S.

Const. Art. I, § 8, cl. 1 (emphasis added).

“Accompanying that assignment of power to Congress

is a bar on its further delegation: Legislative power, we

have held, belongs to the legislative branch, and to no

other.” FCC v. Consumers Research, 145 S. Ct. 2482,

2496 (2025) (citing Whitman, 531 U.S. at 472). “Congress,

this Court explained early on, may not transfer to

another branch ‘powers which are strictly and exclusively

legislative.’” Gundy, 588 U.S. at 135 (quoting Wayman v.

Southard, 23 U.S. (10 Wheat.) 1, 42–43 (1825) (Marshall,

C.J.)); see also Dept. of Transportation v. Assoc. of Am.

Railroads, 575 U.S. 43, 61 (2015) (Alito, J., concurring)

(Congress “cannot delegate its exclusively legislative

authority at all.”) (emphasis added and citation omitted);

id. at 68 (Thomas, J., concurring in the judgment) (“When

the Government is called upon to perform a function that

requires an exercise of legislative, executive, or judicial

power, only the vested recipient of that power can perform

it.”) (emphasis added).

“To distinguish between the permissible and the

impermissible in this sphere, we have long asked whether

16

Congress has set out an ‘intelligible principle’ to guide

what it has given the agency to do.” Consumers Research,

145 S. Ct. at 2497 (quoting J.W. Hampton, Jr., & Co. v.

United States, 276 U.S. 394, 409 (1928)); accord Whitman,

531 U.S. at 473 (“Congress must ‘lay down by legislative

act an intelligible principle to which the person or body

authorized to [act] is directed to conform.’”) (emphasis and

brackets in original) (quoting Hampton, 276 U.S. at 409).

“The ‘guidance’ needed is greater, we have explained, when

an agency action will ‘affect the entire national economy’

than when it addresses a narrow, technical issue (e.g.,

the definition of ‘country [grain] elevators’).” Consumers

Research, 145 S. Ct. at 2497 (quoting Whitman, 531 U.S.

at 475) (brackets added by Court).

Given that standard, a nondelegation inquiry

always begins (and often almost ends) with

statutory interpretation. The constitutional

question is whether Congress has supplied an

intelligible principle to guide the delegee’s use

of discretion. So the answer requires construing

the challenged statute to figure out what task

it delegates and what instructions it provides.

Gundy, 588 U.S. at 135–36.

As the Court recently explained, the issue is “whether

Congress has made clear both ‘the general policy’ that

the agency must pursue and ‘the boundaries of [its]

delegated authority.’” Consumers Research, 145 S. Ct. at

2497 (quoting American Power & Light Co. v. SEC, 329

U.S. 90, 105 (1946)) (brackets added by Court). In contrast

to the modest and qualitative, but ascertainable and

meaningful, guideposts upheld in Consumers Research,

17

i.e., amounts “sufficient” to support the FCC universalservice programs, 145 S. Ct. at 2501, the IEEPA does not

contain any direction or boundaries on the amounts or

duration or scope cabining the recently imposed tariffs.

In contrast to the Court’s late nineteenth and early

twentieth century tariff cases in which Congress set

the legislative policy and the President made factual

determinations to adjust the tariffs, which also were

subject to judicial review, so there was no delegation

of legislative power, see Dept. of Transportation, 575

U.S. at 77–82 (Thomas, J., concurring in the judgment),

the IEEPA does not provide any “intelligible principle”

to guide anyone in imposing, increasing, decreasing,

suspending, or altering tariffs of any amount for any

length of time on imports from any country.

T he st at ut or y la ng uage rel ied upon by t he

Government—”regulate” and “importation”—provides

no discernible standard on anything to do with tariffs. See

50 U.S.C. § 1702(a)(1)(B). The statute likewise provides

no guidance on when or how the national emergency that

justified the tariffs would end. The multiple twists this

year in the tariff rates underscore the conclusion that

Section 1702 is standardless.

Although the Government claims that Section 1702(a)

(1)(B) supplies the necessary intelligible principle, see

Gov’t Brief 46, it does not explain how “regulate” or

“importation” supplies any principle, and it concedes

that this ephemeral principle does not extend to the

essential features of tariffs, namely, their “numerical

rates or duration.” Id. So long as the tariffs are not

imposed on a small universe of products set forth in

18

50 U.S.C. § 1702(b), see Gov’t Brief 46, which exempts

postal and other communications that do not involve a

transfer of anything of value, donations, informational

materials, and transactions ordinarily incident to travel,

any tariff imposed at any rate on (almost) any import

from any country for any duration, is permissible. Under

the nondelegation doctrine, “anything goes” is not an

intelligible—or acceptable—limiting principle.

If we open the aperture to include the preconditions

necessary to invoke the IEEPA, see 50 U.S.C. § 1701(a),

the “unusual and extraordinary threat” relied upon to

impose the tariffs are trade deficits that have existed for

generations. See Brian Reinbold and Yi Weng, Historical

U.S. Trade Deficits, Fed. Reserve Bank of St. Louis

(May 17, 2019) (“Running a trade deficit is nothing new for

the United States. Indeed, it has run a persistent trade

deficit since the 1970s—but it also did throughout most

of the 19th century.”), available at https://www.stlouisfed.

org/on-the-economy/2019/may/ historical-u-s-tradedeficits. Something that has persisted nearly as long as

the United States itself cannot be considered an “unusual

and extraordinary threat.” In sum, the IEEPA did not

and could not delegate unprecedented, unlimited, and

unreviewable authority to the President to set worldwide

tariffs that everyone agrees will affect the entire national

economy.

19

CONCLUSION

Amicus Curiae Crutchfield respectfully requests

that the judgment of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the

Federal Circuit in No. 25-250 be affirmed, and that

these consolidated petitions be remanded for further

proceedings.

October 2025

Respectfully submitted,

Peter J. Brann

Counsel of Record

David Swetnam-Burland

Brann & Isaacson

113 Lisbon Street, P.O. Box 3070

Lewiston, ME 04243

(207) 786-3566

pbrann@brannlaw.com

Attorneys for Amicus Curiae

Crutchfield Corporation